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Stick to cricket on visit, India advises Mush

India has said that it expects the Pakistani President to only keep to the Indo-Pak match.

PTI | Mar 24, 2005, 19:07 IST

Responding to questions raised in Parliament, Minister of State for External Affairs Rao Inderjit Singh said Musharraf will come to India to watch cricket and if he talked to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, it will be about cricket and nothing else.He was responding to a query on the issue of Pakistan not allowing transit of Indian goods to Afghanistan through its territory.

The minister said the issue is unlikely to figure during President Pervez Musharraf''s visit to India next month, Rajya Sabha was informed on Thursday.

Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran underlined the minister''s statement later on Thursday, making it clear that there will be no "structured agenda" when Musharraf and Manmohan Singh meet next month. India is looking at the forthcoming meeting between Singh and Musharraf as an "occasion when two leaders sit together and talk about whatever they want to," Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran was quoted as telling a team of Pakistan journalists currently visiting India.

Musharraf will arrive in New Delhi on April 16 and would see the last one-dayer of the Indo-Pak cricket series on April 17. "We are looking forward to his visit to New Delhi as an opportunity for the two leaders to engage in talks on different matters. It is not an official summit. It is not a structured meeting and it, therefore, will have no agenda. When the leaders of two countries meet they can discuss any thing," Saran said.

The informal talks will take place over lunch, the Prime Minister planned to host for Musharraf. This will be Musharraf''s first trip to India after the failed Agra summit in 2001.

During the briefing to the Pakistan media, Saran said both India and Pakistan will have to work for creating a middle ground through various confidence-building measures (CBMs) and enlargement of the constituency for peace to settle the simmering Kashmir dispute."We need to overcome the existing mistrust between the two nations, to bridge what your President Musharraf calls as the trust deficit. The (Kashmir) issue has defied solution for many years. The greater the trust, the greater the chances of solving the issue," he said.

An effort to find a solution to the Kashmir problem was being made, he said adding both the countries had their clear viewpoint, which necessitated the creation of a middle ground to reach some kind of mutual understanding for the resolution of the dispute.

"We want to tackle the issue to the satisfaction of India and Pakistan," he said in a reference to the pressure of public opinion in both the countries forcing the two governments to stick to their stated positions. "No solution to the problem is possible unless we reach a mutual understanding on it."

On Pakistan''s oft repeated assertions to include Kashmiris in the talks, Saran said "the people of Kashmir are very much a part and parcel of India''s public opinion".

Asked whether Indian was considering any option to resolve the Kashmir issue, he said "let our leaders engage in a dialogue and find a solution to the problem".

A mutually acceptable solution can be reached provided there is public support from both the countries. "We wish to come to a mutually acceptable solution of Jammu and Kashmir, provided there is a public support on both sides of the border," he said.

Saran said Kashmir is an integral part of the composite dialogue process, and there was no truth in the impression that India wants to push other issues and Confidence Building Measures (CBMs) to put the Kashmir problem on the back burner.

It''s a long-standing issue, which needs more time, he said, adding that it was not possible to give any timeframe. "If the process goes forward, we may come to a mutually acceptable solution some day," he was quoted as saying.

Saran also said that "we are not satisfied on the issue of cross-border terrorism" but added that infiltration has come down due to the fencing of the LoC. "We have just busted a terrorist group of Lashkar-e-Toiba in New Delhi," he noted.

Observing that both countries have shown flexibility on their stated positions to agree on the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service on humanitarian grounds, he indicated possibility of another bus service between Amritsar and Lahore, for facilitating pilgrimage, particularly of Sikhs to Nankana Sahib, and allowing Pakistanis to historical places in India.

On various CBMs, he said an agreement on pre-notification of missile tests is expected soon.

About possibility of demilitarisation of Siachen, he said "disengagement is the strong desire on both sides" but there was a need to allay suspicions and build more confidence.

On the Indo-Iran gas pipeline through Pakistan, he said India would not be an equity partner in the project, adding that Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar Aiyar would be visiting Pakistan next month to discuss the modalities.

Asked how the transit fee or royalties would be paid to Pakistan, he said its a question of details. Aiyar would discuss some sort of trilateral arrangement on the gas pipeline issue, he added.

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